EDIT 2: I have made some recent changes because of the July 18, 2018 PTR changes. I’ve also broken each parts into 4 different segements but the one for my personal feelings towards my mains you don’t have to read if you don’t want too.
TL;DR: In this post I use Sombra & Ana as main examples and Hanzo, Widowmaker, Junkrat, Brigitte and Orisa as sub examples of proof that the devs pick and choose when to have backbones that is backed up with evidence using their own words against them.
I wouldn’t be saying this if I didn’t see this multiple times. Why do you this? It wouldn’t be that bad if it was for the right reasons but for some reason it almost seems for the wrong reason like every time.
Once the community gets in your heads you seem to do everything in your power to try to please the masses even though most don’t learn to counter characters or play the game as a team then scream nerfs for characters.
You guys seem to do almost everything right besides balancing the game. Remember that terrible Casual Hanzo skin you gave us that looked nothing how it was in the comic? Well you ACTUALLY listened to the feedback of the community and fixed it and now you don’t have problems.
The logic you guys have is why people are so angry with you. If the reasoning made sense probably some wouldn’t be as angry. I’m going to use Ana and Sombra as prime examples along with some other heroes.
Ana's Bias Treatment
In this post you say…
“One aspect of our heroes that is very important is that they all have various strengths and weaknesses.”
Yet clearly some characters you make sure to cover their weaknesses.
This Part is now outdated because of PTR changes July 18, 2018
And this post right here proves my point here.
You literally said to make sure Tracer and Pilot D.va don’t get one shot or even two-shot. Hmm…this looks to me you guys are covering a weakness that you clearly stated that you wanted your characters to have weaknesses and yet you made sure to cover it. Is that why Ana’s damage revert was put to 70 instead of its original 80 to make sure you can’t two-shot them? Having 150HP doesn’t come off as much as a big weakness when you keep covering it. Why are you covering characters with so many strengths and barely any weaknesses? Everybody knows Tracer is one of the best DPS in the game and D.va is the best Tank in the game so why?
Also in this post for Ana you say “she also brings her own weaknesses that must be managed, such as low mobility and lower self-healing.” But back in August 29, 2017 in the patch notes for Widowmaker reason of why Hook went from 12 to 8 seconds (Now is 10 sec.) developers said this…
Developer Comments: Widowmaker is extremely powerful in the right hands, but her abilities often felt a little weak. The Grappling Hook cooldown reduction means she is more likely to have it available when she needs to escape. Venom Mine is intended to be an early warning system, uncovering enemies that are attempting to flank her or her team. With this change, she can see enemies when they trigger the mine, even if they’re on the other side of a wall.
As you stated yourself that she is extremely powerful in the right hands you still helped fix her LITTLE weakness. The Venom Mine buff was needed though because it didn’t do enough to justify having it.
Now let’s look at Ana a character who fits the “if a weakness is just too overbearing or a hero just has too many weaknesses compared to their strengths.” concept you said. As of right now Ana clearly is the overbearing and too many weaknesses that you mentioned. Let me list them for you…
- A sniper who can’t get to sniping high grounds
- A sniper with bad sniper damage that also has DOT (Damage Over Time)
- No Self-Healing that isn’t tied to a cooldown or don’t have the strengths to back up the weakness
- Nano-Boost an Ultimate that is too weak without the speed boost and other characters have better versions of this ultimate and/or abilities that outclass this along with too many ifs to makes its value
- Terrible at defending herself even worse than Zenyatta
- Zenyatta is a better sniper than her even after his alt-fire nerf
- Sleep Dart an ability that is hard to land, slow projectile speed, and can easily be disturbed by .1 damage with a very long cooldown
- Biotic Grenade a very good ability that is constantly wasted used upon yourself than you allies or enemies to get the value it needs
As you see this is way too many weaknesses that’s overbearing and the positives you gave for picking Ana is very easily countered to be even called strength. How can Lucio or Brigitte help peel for Ana if Ana is supposed to be healing from afar? Are they supposed to sit next to her from afar? If so how is Brigitte or Lucio going to heal the rest of the team? Or is Ana supposed to sit next to them with the rest of the team defeating the purpose of her being a long ranged healer? Your balance philosophy isn’t making sense.
When questioned about “Ana is the only sniper who can’t get away” you had said this…
LOL…noticed how you said WAS. This just shows that even you know some of Ana’s kit isn’t working as intended but nothing is being done correctly about it…
The buffs you gave Ana don’t even fix any of the problems that she has they’re mostly QoL changes. Nano-Boosting herself in DM should have already been there. The ammo clip increased clip size is fine but doesn’t fix her problems and buffing the size of the clip over and over again isn’t going to fix her problem. The best buff that everybody says that would be perfect for her is the ability to self-heal that’s not under cooldown something like this…
[New] Passive: Shrike (Same name taken from HotS)
Gains 15 HPS for every shot she lands on her teammates (Doesn’t include full health teammates)
A buff like this would help Ana so much but no you guys believe Ana will be OP and want her to keep these devastating weaknesses that are too overbearing and should be changed like you said but you won’t because the community scared you back in Season 3. Even with the recent changes to Nano-Boost healing the target for 300 HP it still doesn’t address HER problems officially.
I realized that you even don’t realize what you say is what pisses people off. Like the comments for the PTR changes for Ana of July 18, 2018…
When I first read the first line it pissed me off. Because on paper it sounds strong but in game it’s not going like you say it is and the stats of it shows and how everybody is saying she’s bad proves it.
Yet for characters like Widowmaker and Hanzo you covered their weakness and buffed their strengths.
Everything you did for Hanzo you won’t even do for Ana which is very frustrating to watch as Ana player especially since she’s was struggling way more than Hanzo even before his rework. You seem to not understand how frustrating it is to play a hero with a high-skill cap and high-risk for such a low reward. It’s liking being a doctor who spent all their years and hard work getting their degree to only make a lot less than somebody who works at McDonalds. Also you have the nerve to nerf Ana in Total Mayhem a game mode where everybody is meant to be broken. There’s a reason why everybody says “LOL Ana in 2018” because the character is that bad and you decide to show your backbone for the wrong reason.
During the Seagull Interview with the Developers you can see in the comment section of the Twitch that everybody is spamming “Talk about Ana”. Why does everybody want you to talk about Ana? Because all the indirect nerfs on top of the nerfs she’s received along with all the power creep from the other supports especially Mercy is why people are very worried about Ana.
What are those indirect nerfs?
Also during the Seagull Interview you said…
“Because of Ana’s kit being so strong if we buff or fix her weaknesses she will be used every game.”
That comment seriously made me say WTF!!! because that comment has been Mercy this whole time ever since of her rework. She has been the most broken hero of the history of Overwatch!
Sombra's Bias Treatment
Let’s talk about another hero that the community has you scared of as well…Sombra
A character you buffed that ended up worst. How can you even call the character adjustment a success when she’s even worse than she was before? The first set of changes ultimately felt like a net negative. Nerfing the frequency of EMPs for a few trade-off buffs wasn’t really a buff as much as it was a total shift in playstyle. The moment I heard these changes I said that Sombra was flat out nerf and I hope these changes make up for the EMP ult charge lost and the changes did. But then not even a few weeks later into these changes, the complaints start coming in and everyone cries nerf… so you guy immediately announce nerfs to the exact playstyle you wanted Sombra players into playing. I thought you guys would have a backbone but like I said before once the community gets into your heads you seem to do everything in your power to try to please the masses. But for some strange reason you had a backbone for Junkrat for 6 months even though everybody complained about the rip tire and no fall-off damage concussion mine. Even today he’s still a problem and the nerfs you gave wasn’t over the top like how it was for Sombra. You had a backbone for a character who has a very low-skill cap and don’t have a backbone for a character who has a high-skill cap. Sombra’s results showed that not everybody can play her and her pick rate and win rate proved it even more. Then you have the nerve to say this…
Well so much for “KEEPING A CLOSE EYE!” It’s been over 5 months and you finally decided to give Sombra some changes but when you do…you have gave her more nerfs than buffs. Thank goodness the Sombra community begged you to revert some things because those changes you made were about to not make a difference because of the nerfs. I still believe Sombra’s speed should be 75% but it’s whatever. For once Sombra gained a fair trade this time around 25% speed lost for infinite stealth I’ll accept that. I won’t accept that Translocator can be destroyed now because this now means everything in Sombra’s kit can be interrupted by very little damage. Was this change made so that if anybody finds the Translocator they won’t be stuck there camping it forever?
Because technically now since a Sombra can stay invisible forever you can deliberately just troll by constantly throwing a Translocator at the enemy’s team watching them destroy it over and over again fearing a EMP is about to come.
I remember there was bug that allowed Sombra to emote while invisible to cancel the delay, voiceline and allowed her act out of stealth instantly and that was immediately fix the next patch without even putting it under bug fixes. So…you’re able to fix a bug that helps Sombra immediately but it takes you over 5 months to give her changes along with bug fixes…yeah ok…
Sombra STILL does nothing that you based off the developer comments.
I can see why back then you believed those Sombra change was a success…
- Sombra’s ability to non-interactively farm EMP quickly is now gone and will not be seen in Pro/OWL play going forward
- Her pick and win-rates have been slightly increased, in the Competitive ladder (even though they are going down even further than before)
- Sombra 2.1 will NOT be a consistent hero pick in the Pro/OWL scene, where Tracer will remain the primary flanker/disruptor, at the behest of the OWL Pro players.
The funny thing about this is I remember you saying you want characters to be good on certain maps which will hold their niche and you used Widowmaker as an example of her being so good certain maps. But now for Sombra she has no niche on certain maps because you took away the only niche that she had and nerf the replacement you gave her. Even with these recent changes to Translocator and Stealth her mid fight is still terrible and all these changes compliment the old play style of ult charge from health packs which is not a thing anymore. If I were to add some changes I would add this along with the changes you’ve made…
Hack
- Now shows sugar skull above head and shows the timer of how long the hack will last until it runs out. (Just like hacked health packs)
- Gains 1% ult charge for every 10 HP towards hacked health packs for herself only
Machine Pistol
- Reload speed decreased from 1.5 to 1.25
- Damage increased from 2.4-8 to 2.5-10
What I find funny is when the community tried to destroy Brigitte you once again chose to have a backbone.
People are still complaining about her today. (Just recently got nerf on July 18, 2018 PTR changes) Why didn’t you just listen to the community like you usually do? You weren’t thinking about Ana or Sombra being over nerf when you did their changes. This proves my point even further about you picking and choosing when to have a backbone.
The community has you very scared when you want to be scared and the interview with Jeff Kaplan shows it when he talks about Sombra and Doomfist…
https://i.redd.it/8zeft76n5kr01.png
Jeff Kaplan in this interview you have said “we have to be very metered in how we balance her so she doesn’t overwhelm people or make the game unfun.” Well the think about is Tracer is unfun and overwhelming and so is Genji but you have a backbone to not nerf them as hard as you did Doomfist and Sombra. Right now Tracer and Genji only come off weak right now is because of Brigitte and people even say she’s overwhelming but like you devs said “we don’t want to over nerf her” like you did to other said characters. No matter how slow you try to balance them nobody is going to be happy when they become relevant because everybody is so used to not being good and never want change. So far you let the community control you into making the game so stale that any change that they’re not used to they’re going to complain and say it’s hurting the game. Well let’s be honest here any big change that happens people are going to say it’s hurting the game.
Weird Balanced Philosophy Logic
Let’s go back and talk about your philosophy in the balancing of characters. From how the way you guys balance things you seem to think unfun/annoying playstyles are OP. They aren’t they’re just annoying. You seem to focus on the wrong things and have a backbone for it. For example…
When you decided to try to nerf Orisa’s damage by 15% for an 8 second shield. Of course these changes were before the recent ones you have made for her. Luckily on the PTR everybody kept saying that the damage nerf wasn’t needed because she already has a movement penalty when shooting and most of her shots missed anyway and that the 8 second shield isn’t worth it if she’s going to be worst overall. This is how Sombra is right now. The hack speed isn’t worth it if it’s going to be fail and break most of the time. Even though the community gave their feedback you still showed your backbone and decided to nerf the damage by 9% instead. In developer comments back in May 23, 2017 you say…
Developer Comments: To help Orisa maintain the front line for her team, we’re reducing the cooldown of her Protective Barrier. This change also helps her reposition the barrier more easily when needed. To compensate for this new defensive strength, we’re reducing her Fusion Driver’s damage, as it felt too high.
But when you buff Junkrat you said you were going to nerf the damage when he got his second concussion mine but you didn’t. In fact like I stated before you gave it to him and on top of all that no fall-off damage or even an ult charge nerf when all these changes came in. You took in no consideration of how Junkrat’s changes were going to make him but you worried about a character who already had a lot of weaknesses. Speaking of weaknesses you did say you want your characters to have weaknesses to exploit well how come you completely removed Junkrat’s weakness to hurt himself yet won’t even give Ana a self-sustain passive? What happened to “One aspect of our heroes that is very important is that they all have various strengths and weaknesses.” Because I clearly don’t see it anymore.
You’re scared of Ana being OP and yet when you made Mercy 2.0 you did not believe in the slightest when developing her that all that stuff in her kit would make her OP. Even though she’s recently received a nerf on the July 18, 2018 PTR changes she has super strong for far too long and everybody knows this because she still does so much for how little you have to do with her. Even though knowing all this you had this to say…
“Will close this gap a little.” I hope we don’t have to sit through a whole another year dealing with her still being a must pick.
“We’ll keep an eye on her to make sure she is still a STRONG pick.” This sounds so familiar? LOL
This just proves my point on how you have a backbone for the wrong reasons even more. Nobody wants to deal with her being strong again because there’s no point in playing any other healers besides Zenyatta.
Who has always been broken but wasn’t considered broken because he spent most of the time in the spawn to cover for him being so strong but not anymore when Mercy can pocket and Rez him to cover his weakness.
Let’s hope the recent changes on the PTR actually changes this duo because they lasted way longer than Ana/Lucio have. Things seriously need to change because Mercy/Zenyatta has been the meta support since Season 6 just look at OWL.
My Personal Feelings Towards My Mains Sombra & Ana
I am a Sombra and Ana main since season 4 which is when I joined the game. I have put in 600+ hours combined for both characters. I have technically joined near the end of season 3. I saw the Sombra trailer and fell in love with the character and Ana was a pick up I soon began to love just as much as Sombra because of the skill it took to get good with her not to mention I was told she was the best healer and she was.
But overtime Ana began to get worse and worse as the indirects nerfs kept coming and the fact that she had everything nerf in her kit. I always felt Sombra was fine because I played her when her buffs came in when she first got her 4 second translocator and I learned how to be a DPS and EMP bot Sombra when needed.
Slowly but surely everybody realized that Ana was bad and Mercy was taking over even before the rework. Because the hide and rez strategy was so good. After the rework we had to beg for Ana to get her damage back but it was put to 70 and yes even though it still 3 shots its not as good as 80 damage.
Now when Sombra got her changes I was surprise that she was getting changes because somebody commented on a developer update video about Sombra being bad and why wasn’t she getting any changes. I was shocked that people said Sombra over Ana considering that Ana was worst than Sombra. It’s just that nobody knew how to play her.
The moment I saw the change of “no ult charge from health packs” I was convinced that Sombra’s changes were worst. Luckily they weren’t but I did say Sombra is on a thin line and it doesn’t take much to make her worst. I believed that Sombra wasn’t going to get nerf so quickly because they haven’t done it to Junkrat considered how OP he was.
But then I was completely wrong…
Only 2 weeks of playing new Sombra because of all the complaining. Because they nerf and gave additional restrictions to a character who was already suffering on top of losing ult charge from health packs Sombra had nothing to fall back on thus making her worst than her changes before.
After I saw how fast they nerf Sombra I knew she was going to be in the same category as Ana which I feared. The category I call “We are scared of this character and don’t want to buff them because we’ll get yelled at again.” category.
I was so frustrated to have not 1 but 2 of my characters that I love get this terrible treatment. How unlucky am I to pick a character who gets worse after getting buff. A character who takes skill yet but high risk low reward and is considered the worst support in the game who still hasn’t had any changes that fixes her problem.
HOW UNLUCKY AM I TO GET TWO CHARACTERS THAT SO SIMILAR ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY!!!
Here’s the list…
- Both have abilities that can be cancelled by .1 damage
- Both have the lowest win rates
- Both are terrible at the job they’re designed to do
- Both counter hardcore game mechanics (no healing & no abilities)
- Both have ultimates that can easily fail and both ultimates took hardcore nerfs
- Both are feared of being OP by some of the community. (Understandable for Sombra but fear Ana? Because of Season 3 Triple Tank? WTF Really?)
- Both fail to have what is needed in the category they’re in. Which is damage for Sombra and self-sustain for Ana
- Both watch other characters get their problems addressed correctly without thinking twice while Sombra and Ana gets changes that barely do anything or gets 2-3 nerfs every time they get 1 buff
- And WORST OF ALL BOTH ARE FEAR BY DEVS WHICH MEANS THEY WILL PROBABLY STAY LIKE THIS FOR MONTHS OR EVEN YEARS BECAUSE OF THE FEAR
So yeah…I’m totally suffering and losing enjoyment from this game…
Your balance philosophy and logic makes no sense at all! I wouldn’t be as bothered if it wasn’t so off and you held your backbone most of the time and gave us a comment like…
“Changes we have made to ‘X’ character won’t be changed for a month until we see data and results that proves a change needs to be made after the month has passed or if we see a change that needs to be made sooner.”
I would totally be happy with a comment like that because you will give the players the time to adapt and you’re letting us know that you are looking at results and data and not cries for nerfs only.
Thank you for all those who have sat down and read this whole thing. I’m a Sombra/Ana main and watching their choices and logic just pissed me off so much that I had to make this post.
